Stay on target

Seagate wants to make sure you never run out of space to store whatever data it is you’re warehousing. They’re gearing up to launch a 16TB hard drive within the next 18 months.

To be clear, this is not some chunky, multi-drive 16TB external unit. Seagate is talking about a standard-issue 3.5-inch SATA drive. Standard, you know, except for the ridiculous capacity.

The company is currently testing a 12TB drive, and CEO Stephen Luczo says that initial feedback has been very positive. There is also a 14TB model in the works.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that all three drives will be helium-filled, keeping with the trend established by both Seagate and Western Digital over the last couple years.

Even though SSD prices continue to slide rapidly, there’s still a thriving market for good ol’ platter-filled hard drives. Folks like the crew over at Backblaze is probably anxiously waiting to get their hands on Seagate’s 16TB beast.

Using Seagate’s comparatively dinky 8TB drives, BackBlaze crammed nearly half a petabyte (480TB, to be exact) into the 2016 version of their Storage Pod. The same unit with 16TB drives… well, that’s just shy of a petabyte in a 4U rackmount case.

These drives won’t be cheap when they arrive, of course. The initial supply will get snapped up by organizations and individuals with voracious appetites for data. The ones that aren’t willing to pay whatever Seagate plans to ask for their batshit crazy 60TB SSD when they finally offer it up for sale (possibly before the end of this year).